WASHINGTON – Today the top four leaders of Congress will join President Biden at the White House for a high-stakes meeting on raising the debt ceiling. Congressional Republicans are deeply divided with Biden on the debt ceiling issue as the U.S. inches closer to running out of money to pay its bills.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is urging lawmakers to raise the debt ceiling as soon as possible.
“This would be a huge hit to the economy and really an economic catastrophe,” warned Yellen in a recent interview with CNBC. “If Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling we just will not have enough money at that time to be able to pay all of the bills the government owes and this would be really the first time since 1789 that such a thing would have occurred.”
Yellen warns the U.S. could default on some of its debts as soon as June 1st which would cause financial chaos. More than 40 Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) saying they won’t support an increase without spending cuts.
“For whatever reason President Biden has determined that he doesn’t want to negotiate on this and he said it’s got to be clean and has made promises ‘if you’ll do this today promise I’ll do something later on the budget,’ that’s just not proved to be true,” Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) told ABC.
House Republicans already passed a bill approving a debt ceiling increase for one year, along with substantial budget cuts to avert further deficit spending, but Democrats only want to increase the debt ceiling without making cuts.
“We have to avoid default, period, full stop,” declared House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on NBC’s Meet the Press. “I think what’s in front of us right now is that President Biden has convened a very important discussion on Tuesday so we can find a way forward to do what is necessary to continue to strengthen our economy in a manner that benefits everyday Americans.”
With Congress set to take a break for the Memorial Day holiday, there are a limited number of working days to get the deal done.
As Biden works to close the gap between Democrats and Republicans on the debt ceiling issue, a new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows the President’s approval rating is at an all-time low with only 36% of respondents saying they approve of Biden’s job performance, and 56% saying they disapprove.
The poll also finds Biden would lose to former President Donald Trump in a head-to-head match-up in 2024 by 6%.
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